The dangerous incoherence of the Trump Administration continues. Today, the President of the United States said that the U.S. can “solve” North Korea unilaterally. He has no idea how, but he says we can:
Trump’s comments in an interview with the Financial Times come just days before he is set to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida. The two are expected to discuss a number of issues, including North Korea, trade and territorial disputes in the South China Sea during their meeting on Thursday and Friday.
“Yes, we will talk about North Korea,” Trump told the newspaper for a story that appeared Sunday on its website. “And China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone.”
Trump said trade was the incentive for China to work with the United States. Still, he said the United States could “totally” handle the situation in North Korea without China’s help.
Asked how he would tackle North Korea, Trump said: “I’m not going to tell you. You know, I am not the United States of the past where we tell you where we are going to hit in the Middle East [“US Will Act Alone on North Korea If China Fails to Help,” UK Guardian, 2017.04.02].
The President’s own Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said otherwise today:
Haley also emphasized that the U.S. is putting pressure on China to get neighboring North Korea to end its nuclear program.
The United States should “no longer take the excuses from China that ‘they’re concerned,'” she said. “They need to show us how concerned they are … The only country that can stop North Korea is China, and they know that” [Ryan Struyk, “UN Envoy Nikki Haley Says ‘There’s No Love’ in US Relationship with Russia,” ABC News, 2017.04.02].
Someone had better send Ambassador Haley some reinforcements. Haley and Chinese President Xi had better convince Trump, before he starts pushing buttons, that the U.S. cannot expect to impose any solution on a peninsula of brainwashed fanatics on China’s border with the cooperation of the Chinese.
The Los Angeles Times is right: Donald Trump is a bigger train wreck in office than we thought he would be.
Kristi, John, Mike, remember all those nice young South Dakota airmen you saw off today on their international deployment? If you want to see them coming home alive and not riddled with flak or worse from North Korean or Chinese guns, you should talk to your President.